


Rum and Coke

by JackyJango



Series: Remixes [12]
Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst and Feels, Author is confused on how to tag this fic, Charles You Will Be Drunk, Drinking, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Erik is not a Happy Bunny, Jealous Erik, M/M, Poor Charles, Protective Erik, Smoking, eventually, grumpy erik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-09 12:20:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15267381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackyJango/pseuds/JackyJango
Summary: Erik watches raptly as Charles sips on his scotch and coke; watches the high spots of colour on the apple of his cheeks, watches the line of his pale throat exposed above the blue t-shirt, the bob of his adam’s apple as he swallows the drink, and his gentle hold on the flimsy plastic cup. A loose chestnut curl flails with the action.Though the party is in full swing around them, Charles is only on his second drink. Not that Erik is keeping a tally-- of course-- he’s just bored.





	Rum and Coke

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bocje_ce_ustu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bocje_ce_ustu/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [bocje_ce_ustu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bocje_ce_ustu/pseuds/bocje_ce_ustu) in the [xmen_remix_madness2018](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/xmen_remix_madness2018) collection. 



> Inspired by bocje-ce-ustu's [Tumblr fic](http://bocje-ce-ustu.tumblr.com/post/165811813517/11-cherik)
> 
> There are no triggers or warnings. The rating is just for the language.  
> All mistakes are my own, please forgive them?
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading!

          Erik watches raptly as Charles sips on his scotch and coke; watches the high spots of colour on the apple of his cheeks, watches the line of his pale throat exposed above the blue t-shirt, the bob of his  adam ’s apple as he swallows the drink, and his gentle hold on the flimsy plastic cup. A loose chestnut curl flails with the action. 

Though the party is in full swing around them, Charles is only on his second drink. Not that Erik is keeping a tally \-- of course \-- he’s just bored. Normally, Erik’s not the one for parties; but every once in a while he tags along when his roommate pulls him \-- if only for the reprieve it gives him from drinking cheap beer. The fact that this was  a mutants -only party had certainly been a catalyst. Plus, Erik had needed something strong to blow off the fury that accompanied the heated debate in the cafeteria earlier in the day \-- Charles and him were practically yelling at each other by the end of it, putting on quite a spectacle for the slew of onlookers. So wrapped up in his anger was Erik that he hadn’t considered the prospect of Charles being there, but his eyes had latched on to the Telepath at the other end of the room once he had seen him, the sight of Charles subconsciously churning the argument from earlier in his head violently. Somewhere in the process, his roommate had abandoned him to stew in his anger. 

Now that he’s beginning to notice, Charles' sister and his furry friend are nowhere to be seen. Erik glances around the room; he recognises a few from the Brotherhood, but none of them holds his attention. 

And just like that, his eyes are back on Charles, who is swaying a little on his feet and leaning heavily on the edge of the table behind him. Charles looks extremely inebriated for a man who is only on his second drink. The glazed blue of his eyes are visible even from where Erik is standing. It’s an effect Erik knows all too well: second-hand intoxication. Emma had furiously and vividly explained it to him on multiple occasions. A room full of tipsy mutants is certainly not a good place for a telepath. And for an omega-level telepath like Charles, the effect must be amplified.

Being around Emma has also thought him to shield his mind around a drunk telepath. So he pulls up his mental barriers duly.

Dragging in a lungful of smoke from his cigarette, Erik exhales languidly. Through the curls of smoke, he sees Archangel approach Charles, and the latter smiles easily. It’s none of his business with whom Charles speaks to, Erik tells himself. But despite that, he scowls as the duo fall into an easy conversation. Charles is smiling at the blonde.  _ Smiling _ . 

As minute pass, Charles begins to slump on the table behind him. His hold on the now-empty cup slacks and his eyelids begin to droop heavily. The Telepath nearly loses his footing when he turns to place the cup on the table, and Erik’s spine stiffens immediately. Before he gives over to his impulse of running over and catching him, Archangel puts a hand on the Telepath’s bare elbow and steadies him. Erik can only watch the scene mutely, ignoring the heat from the short cigarette stub threatening to burn his fingers. 

‘Fucking integrationists, isn’t it?’ A voice from his right interrupts Erik’s thoughts. He turns his head in the direction when he realises that it’s being directed at him. The man is a little shorter than Erik, a grey beanie covering his head and highlighting his thorny face. Erik recognises him. He’s a new member of the Brotherhood. Quill is the name if Erik’s correct. 

When Erik raises an eyebrow, the man nods towards Charles. ‘I was there at the cafeteria today. I heard what he had to say. How could he even think that those human scums would ever accept us? Accept  _ me _ .’ He scoffs. ‘He wouldn’t be saying those things if he’d spent his entire childhood hiding in his room and clawing at his skin. A pretty looking trust fund kid like him wouldn’t understand. Instead of using it to side with the humans, maybe he should put that red mouth of his into something useful. Something like sucking my dick.’

Erik doesn’t doubt that the guy with a physical mutation like Quill has had a rough life. Any other day, he would have fuelled the conversation with his own contempt. But now, the words leave his mouth before it can even comprehend them. ‘Hey, shut the fuck up, alright. Utter one more word about him and you’ll end up missing all your teeth.’

Quill looks nonplussed at the force in Erik’s words. This is not how he would have expected the leader of the Brotherhood to react. This is not how Erik  _ would _ have reacted if Charles hadn’t been the subject of conversation. Pushing back his own surprise at his retort, Erik tries to amend. ‘Look, I get it. I understand why you want to blame him for taking the human’s side, but Charles has always taken our side when it matters most. You and I may not agree with his methods, but he _ is  _ one of us. He even-’ Erik turns to  point at Charles and stops. A strong fury unfurls in his stomach at the scene in front of him. A scrawny kid has replaced Archangel and is forcing cigarette smoke into Charles’ parted lips. Charles’ eyes are closed and he’s stumbling with the effort to stand upright.

Erik vehemently stomps on his spent cigarette on the ground and sprints to Charles. 

With how high the kid is, he moves away from Charles without protest, nearly tripping on his way back, depriving Erik of the opportunity of punching the bastard in the face  \-- much like he wants to. 

Charles barely looks conscious when Erik turns to face him. His eyes have fallen shut, and he’s breathing through his lips. Erik stretches out a hand towards Charles to steady him and stops. He’s never touched Charles. Hell, he hasn’t even spoken to him outside of their heated debates and yelling matches. There has always been a barrier of condemning glances and verbal jabs between them, and without those, Erik feels… defenseless.

Before his thoughts sway widely, Erik catches Charles by the elbow and jostles him. ‘Hey, wake up,’ he says a little too stiffly. 

Charles lifts his head up in Erik’s direction and opens his eyes into narrow slits.

‘Where is your sister?’ Erik demands. He’s going to drag Charles to his sister, take another two shots of a very strong drink and get to his room  \-- with or without his roommate.

‘Where’s your sister?’ Erik asks again  \-- a little louder this time  \-- when it looks like an answer from Charles isn’t forthcoming. 

Charles squints, and his lips twist before he slurs with difficulty, ‘ Azae \-  za -’

Fuck.

If Erik had wanted to kick Azazel in the nuts before for bringing him here, he wants to strangle him now.

Erik looks around. Everyone is in various degrees of inebriation. While some mutants are flaring under the influence  \-- putting up displays around small groups  \-- others have dulled, slumping on any available surface like sacks of sand.

He can't just leave Charles here, Erik decides. Not in the current condition of his. Not when he isn’t capable of uttering his own name. Erik might be heartless, but not a monster \-- contrary to popular belief. Erik knows that Charles and his sister have a place of their own near the campus, but nothing more. Maybe he should have payed more attention to the blasted gossip that Emma dearly likes to spread on a daily basis.

'Where do you live? ’ he tries to ask Charles by jostling the Telepath’s elbow. Charles' only reaction is an incomprehensible mumble. Erik should have expected as much. 

With Azazel indisposed for the night, maybe Erik can accommodate Charles in their dorm until he sobers, and kick him out later. Charles doesn’t have a jacket on him, and the thin material of his t-shirt isn't going to withstand the harsh cold outside.

‘ Scheisse ,’ Erik hisses. 

Tightening his hold on Charles’ elbow with one hand, Erik shrugs out of his leather jacket and transfers it onto Charles’ shoulders and into his flailing arms.

The Charles in front of him isn’t the posh, nosy leader of the integrationists with a know-it-all attitude and an unrighteous optimism. He isn't Erik’s fierce debate opponent who fights with an irritating confidence and a naïve arrogance. The Charles in front of him is… vulnerable.

Later Erik will convince himself that it was the rum he had consumed earlier and not the surge of protectiveness that rose within him at the sight of Charles looking small and fragile in his oversized jacket that inspired such a reaction from him. But for now, he drapes an arm over Charles’ shoulder and begins dragging him towards the door, pushing people in his way by the metal on them. Someone falls to the ground behind him, but he doesn’t care, not with how Charles' head has come to rest on his shoulder.

The weather outside is harsher than what it was when Erik had arrived. Erik blows out a puff of cold air, squares his shoulders and begins walking down the street, tugging a sluggish Charles along. Charles mumbles something, but whatever he says is lost into the cotton of Erik's torn t-shirt.

The music dulls the farther they move away from the house \-- the sound now more of a thump that the air brings. It’s considerably late in the night and the Street is empty \-- save for the occasional car or two that speeds past them. In the absence of life, the wind howls obscenely. 

Erik scans the surroundings just out of habit. It's safe. Still, he pulls Charles closer to his side.

Beside him, Charles’ parted pink lips are mumbling silently against Erik’s t-shirt, his brown fringes have tumbled unceremoniously over his forehead, and his breaths are coming out as hot puffs of air warming Erik’s neck. Looking at him like this, it’s hard to believe that Charles is the strongest telepath of them all; that Charles could crush him with a thought. But if Erik is honest with himself, he knows that Charles would never do such a thing. Morals, he would preach. kindness and peace, he would say.

Truth be told, Erik doesn’t have a reason to hate Charles beside the fact that he's an integrationist and that his idealistic outlook on mutant issues enrages Erik to no end. The more he thinks about it, Erik can’t deny that despite his nativity, Charles is extremely intelligent when he puts his mind over morals. He challenges Erik to think better; pushes him to doubt the credibility of his argument. Charles is also amongst the very few people who has been kind to him. ‘I apologise to you on behalf of him,’ Charles had said when the arsehole Sunspot had dragged Erik’s past into one of their debates. Though Erik would have felt the apology forced and diplomatic coming from others, the honestly that had bled through Charles' wide eyes had prevented him from breaking the arsehole's bones.

Now that they have relatively distanced themselves from the house, the effects must have worn down, for Charles’ footsteps are getting steadier as they move along the pavement. 

‘ Eweek ,’ Charles mumbles again. So he  _ is  _ aware who he's with. Good. It makes this whole ordeal a little less awkward (Erik would have been  _ fucking mad _ had the roles been reversed \-- if someone had so much as touched him when he is unconscious). 'Cigarettes are bad  fo you. ’ Though the words are muffled into Erik’s shoulder, it’s still strong enough to convey the meaning. And so is getting drunk second-handedly with no one around to escort you home, Erik thinks bitterly, but he doesn't voice it.

From somewhere across the road, a couple of garbage cans rattle. A quick scan of the surroundings and the accompanying sounds assure Erik of the nature of the commotion.

Beside him, Charles lifts his head from his shoulder and his eyes open partly to blue slots. A lazy smile takes over his face. 'Erik, Did you hear that?' he asks,  voice filled with awe,  ‘ It’s a kitten!'

So transfixed by the pure joy on Charles' face is he that Erik belatedly realises that Charles has

slipped out from beneath his arm and is stumbling on unsteady legs to cross the road. Just as Charles steps on the asphalt, a pair of headlights flash from the corner of the road and a car accelerates precariously towards them.

'Charles! ’ Erik shouts, grabs the Telepath’s wrist and reels him back, barely preventing him from colliding with the car. The force of the accelerated metal rings in Erik's ears as the car zips past them. 

‘Fuck,’ he hisses. It had been close; too close for Erik to control the car without damages and injuries to its inmates. While he tries to calm his breaths, Charles groans beside him. Only then does Erik realise that he has plastered Charles to his side with a white knuckled grip on his shoulder.

‘Fuck- sorry,’ Erik murmurs an apology and eases his hold. 

'I don't like cursing, ’ Charles winces. He's more awake now. He's not slurring as much as before or falling in place. The lack of complete conciseness and the half-lidded eyes are more likely due to exhaustion and drowsiness than intoxication. 'Mother says cursing isn't elegant.’

Oh course. Erik probably checks off on every item on the list of things Charles Xavier doesn't approve of. Instead of responding, Erik pulls Charles along and begins walking. The cold is beginning to get to him- gnawing at his skin where it has sieved in though the holes in his shirt. Fortunately, they only have two more blocks to cross. 

Charles’ hands lock around his waist and his head, once again, comes to rest on Erik's shoulder. Erik won't deny that the new arrangement aids them in moving faster as a single unit. It also puts Charles's head right under his nose, where the brown strands of hair tickle his nostrils. It's as silky as it looks. Beyond the traces of cigarette smoke, Charles's hair smells of apple \-- no doubt an expensive brand of shampoo the likes of Erik can never afford. 

‘You're so skinny. You should eat more,’ Charles murmurs. 

‘And you should mind your own business.’

'Grumpy, ’ Charles complaints to his chest. ‘Hank tells me that you’re just like Kurt, but I don't think so. I don't believe that.’

Erik doesn't know who Kurt is. A curious part of his mind wants to know how he compares to ‘Kurt’, and if the comparison is remotely flattering. Erik quickly hushes that part. He’s never really bothered about what Charles thinks of him, and he isn't going to start now.

Charles continues to mumble gibberish for a few more minutes until his words turn into inaudible whispers. 

By the time they reach the dorm and Erik opens the door with his powers, Charles’ breaths on his chest are slow and steady. 

Once in the relative warmth of his room, Erik turns to deposit the Telepath on Az' bed. Unsurprisingly, Azazel's bed is a Health Hazard \-- cluttered with dirty clothes, books, crust laden pizza boxes and stained coffee mugs. Erik's left with no other choice but to put Charles down on his own bed. The absence of Charles’s warmth in his arms leaves him cold and bereft.

He turns Charles carefully in his arms \-- with one hand behind his neck and the other supporting his neck \-- and lays him down gently on his bed. He eases Charles’ shoes out of his feet and drapes the thin blanket around his lower torso. Erik's jacket \-- which is too big for Charles, with the hem reaching mid-thigh and sleeves pooling over his wrists \-- should keep Charles’ upper body warm.

Charles is deep asleep \-- chest rising and falling evenly with each breath he takes \-- wearing his jacket, in his bed. The sight does something to Erik; twists something primal that is buried deep within his chest so far that the pain starts to manifest physically. Erik doesn't want to comprehend the feeling, doesn't want to address it, or label it, or to do anything with it. So he straightens immediately and turns on his heels \-- his movement so sudden that he barely misses knocking his knees against the side of the bed. 

A feeble grip on his wrist stops him.

Surprised, Erik turns. Charles is still asleep, but he's mumbling something. His brown fringes have tumbled down to cover his eyes. So Erik crouches beside Charles and gently swipes the strands back. Charles leans into the touch and mumbles \-- a little comprehendible this time \-- ‘Erik, I don't want you to hate me. Why do you hate me so much? I like you… you...’ he trails off.

Erik doesn't know what to say to that. Charles  _ likes _ him? What’s there to like? Still a little spark kindles in his chest, rakes its invisible fingers over his chest and eases the pain.

Charles will probably not remember Erik's reply come tomorrow. Hell, Charles will probably not remember any of this tomorrow. They'll go back to being debate opponents and hating each other's guts all over again. Perhaps it’s that prospect that prompts Erik the most \-- that his confession will stay safe with him. In the silence of his dorm, Erik replies, 'I don't hate you, Charles. ’ He huffs out a breath ruefully. ‘And God knows I've tried. See, that's the whole problem. I could never hate you.’

-

**Author's Note:**

> I may or may not continue. Either way, it's bound to be a happy ending!
> 
> Also, [JackyJango](https://jackyjango.tumblr.com) on Tumblr  
> Thank you for reading! :D


End file.
